Comments

I'll admit my bias right upfront.. I am in love with the BMW maintenance plan.. For four years, you just drop the car off and never pay a dime...

While the Lexus may be cheaper to maintain and repair over 8-10 years, that is a long time to drive your second choice.. (and, given the four year head start on maintenance with the BMW, that isn't a given)..

I tend to think of Asian makes as cheaper than the Europeans, as well.. but, I've seen our local Lexus dealership.... they are paying for all those luxury accoutrements from somewhere... I'm guessing the service department is pulling their weight....

My wife had to return a new RX450H. Cabin integrity compromised with burning, fumes -- she was sick, our son quick. OUr contractor at home sampled car and said, "How can anyone breathe in this?" Dealer found no problem but refused to replicate driving conditions -- long drive followed by steep climb to our home in Santa Monica Mountains. We paid dealer $5000 to get out of lease and expected Toyota Corp (for Lexus) simply to reimburse. Isntead ,they stonewalled. So, now we will go to Federal authorities, advise automobile columnists and pursue litigation. We'll probably put in more time than justified, but it's a matter of principle. On prior Lexus, copany was responsive to any concerns. They could have resolved this nicely by simply ot making us eat the loss. I'm assume problem not widespread -- only found few similar problems on Internet realted to a substance used that can give off toxics. We will be raising the profile of this issue to see if others had similar problems that were not resolved. By the way, out of courtesy to Lexus, we even advised corp counsel, and he imprudent bucked problem to a bureaucrat who did not seek closure. We were stunned and surprised at the company's insensitivity and inability the consequences of its failure to resolve our situation.

With all your respect and no offence but I can tell that everything you&#146;ve said is very personal and subjective. All you just have expressed is YOUR taste about cars, which as normal it&#146;s gonna be deferent to others. Like you may prefer chocolate ice cream and I may prefer vanilla. And when it comes to reliability it happens that I used to be an RX owner, unfortunately a very disappointed one like many others I found in different forums. My RX needed a transmission rebuild at 90K miles and according to the mechanic it was not the first one. I found RX owners online with transmission problems at 40, 50, 60 and 70K, this is unacceptable for the money you pay for these cars. It was funny when I told a Lexus sales person that I would never buy a pre-owned RX again and if I do I would get rid of it before factory warranty expires and that they are just good looking cars, lol he got kind of mad. And I went ahead and said that not every Toyota/Lexus products are good, they&#146;ve been successful with Corolla, Camry/ES, 4Runner/GX and Landcruiser/LX the rest is questionable, He said: if the Camry is a good car so is the Highlander/RX because they share the same transmission. That is when I understood the root of the problem, Toyota/Lexus are using a sedan transmission on a much heavier vehicle like the Highlander and RX. So after all if you are just gonna drive your RX during the warranty period you are fine, don&#146;t go any further dough, that&#146;s my advice. If you don&#146;t believe me just Google &#147;RX transmission problems&#148;.Good luck

The Camry was used as a model, start, for the early RX transmission, but regretably with some serious changes included. Then in about '01 that "changed" RX transmission was (re?) adopted by the Camry and etc, etc.

It was only after DBW was adopted (RX330) that those new transmissions become reasonably reliable.